On Tuesday 23 September 2003 4:11 am, Peer Stefan wrote: <snip>
Are you aware of the OSI layers? 1) Physical layer 2) Media access / Data Link 3) Network 4) Transport 5) Session 6) Presentation 7) Application
Yes I'm studying for my network + as we speak. I wonder why switches weren't talked about in the Data link chapter? All I learned about were bridges.
Switches are (normally) working in layer 2 - this is the ethernet layer (or token ring or atm or isdn or whatever). Routers work in layer 3. This is where IP comes in. So routers route the traffic between IP-subnets (this is why you need the netmasks), and switches "route" the traffic according to the ARP-table (MAC-addresses). If you need IP-filters and NAT and stuff you'll need a firewall which takes care of the routing too (this could be a linux-box, a cable-router or a cisco, if you have that much money ;-)
Or how to have linux take care of the routing info.
There's a good linux routing howto. Have a look at http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Adv-Routing-HOWTO/
Thanks for the info, and to Will and Jon for their posts. -- Franklin Maurer Using SuSE 8.2 Pro